Risk in Action: the Practical Effects of the Youth Management Assessment
| Date | 01 June 2008 |
| Author | Dale Ballucci |
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663908089610 |
| Published date | 01 June 2008 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
RISK IN ACTION: THE
PRACTICAL EFFECTS OF THE
YOUTH MANAGEMENT
ASSESSMENT
DALE BALLUCCI
University of Alberta, Canada
ABSTRACT
This article illustrates the importance of empirical investigations that reveal ‘risk in
action’. Using interviews, operation manuals and correctional policies, I examine the
governance of female young offenders at ‘Youth House’ (an open custody facility in
Canada). This article focuses on the ways in which risk discourses and practices shape
the governance process. Particular attention is paid to the discretionary power of
front-line workers and administrators who employ the Youth Management Assess-
ment (YMA), a risk tool used to govern young offenders. My research shows that
contrary to the belief that risk tools remove the subjective nature of the governing
process, such practices not only still exist but are necessary for risk tools to operate.
Furthermore, I reveal an unanticipated outcome of risk tools. I argue their use un-
intentionally results in the surveillance of an unsuspecting population: those that
govern. Risk tools are implemented seemingly with the intent to manage offenders,
however, in practice the YMA also governs those that govern.
KEY WORDS
actuarial risk tools; discretionary power; governance; governmentality; risk; young
offenders
INTRODUCTION: RISK IN THEORY
MOST RECENT DISCUSSIONS of risk practices that pertain to the treat-
ment of offenders have been philosophical treatises and discursive
analyses. Both make claims about the operationalization of risk, yet
SOCIAL &LEGAL STUDIES Copyright © 2008 SAGE Publications
Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore, www.sagepublications.com
0964 6639, Vol. 17(2), 175–197
DOI: 10.1177/0964663908089610
both are often far removed from the lived reality of risk-based forms of
governance. Such work is particularly lacking in reference to young offenders,
who have emerged in the penal system as a population recognized as having
different treatment needs than adults.
In this article I argue that theoretical abstractions of risk-based forms of
governance often do not represent actual correctional practices. As such, ‘risk
in action’ differs in several respects from ‘risk in theory’. In particular, I focus
on (a) the operation of discretionary power; (b) the dynamic nature of risk;
and (c) the unintended consequences of risk-management processes. These
distinctions are elaborated through an examination of a tool used to assess
risk among young offenders, the Youth Management Assessment form
(YMA), which is deployed at an open custody facility (‘Youth House’)1in
Ontario, Canada. In the real-world context of governing populations, where
the YMA is deployed by front-line workers and administrators, we see a
plurality of motivations and purposes behind the operationalization of risk.
Many of these fall outside of the idealized objectives of managing risk out-
lined in the theoretical literature.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF RISK AND RISK TECHNOLOGIES:
THE NEW PENOLOGY
The ‘governmentality’ literature provides revealing insights about currents in
penality. This theoretical framework builds on the work of Foucault (1991),
who argues that there has been a shift in state-governing strategies, and that
this shift has altered the operations of power. Analogous with the move away
from the centralized sovereign power towards more expansive forms of
regulation, these new governing strategies invoke more subtle and efficient
forms of power.
The distinguishing feature of governmentality lies in recognizing the complex
relationship between political actions, technologies and the objectives of
government.2Foucault (1991: 102) defines this approach as
the ensemble formed by the institutions, procedures, analyses and reflections,
the calculations and tactics that allow the exercise of this very specific, albeit
complex form of power, which has as its target population, as its principal form
of knowledge political economy and as its technical means, apparatus of security.
Researchers interested in governmentality have a sound theoretical motiva-
tion and precedent for analyzing how power is exercised over persons and for
exploring the complex relations between state power and other modalities of
governance (Hudson, 1998).
Governmentality, then, is a theoretical framework that has been particu-
larly insightful in addressing how populations are regulated under neo-liberal
regimes. This literature illustrates the changing rationalities and technologies
in penal practices and policies, and offers unique insights into the logics for
managing offenders in particular ways. Intersecting with the governmentality
176 SOCIAL & LEGAL STUDIES 17(2)
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